


on and on

by andchaos



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M, they talk a lot about death but no one actually dies in the story itself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 05:31:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6066976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchaos/pseuds/andchaos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost nothing lasts forever, not even Shadowhunters. But Magnus does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	on and on

**Author's Note:**

> cw: nobody dies but like. he's close. he's old and close. basically a deathbed fic because i thrive off of angst.
> 
>  
> 
> update: this work has been translated to russian! special, eternal thanks to [audreydarcie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/audreydarcie/profile). find the translation [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/4402105)! xoxox

          It’s strange now, seeing him like this. Magnus remembers when Alec was bright and young and fresh-faced, when he could jump across rooftops and dance with him until the sun came up over the horizon. He hasn’t been _that_ Alec in years and years now, but Magnus still isn’t used to him like _this_ —lined and gray and grasping, grasping.

          “Tell me something,” Alec says.

          Magnus sits next to him, settles in. He finds Alec’s hand by the edge of their bed and threads their fingers together. Still, after all this time, lightning shoots through him when Alec clutches him back.

          “What do you want to hear?”

          “Something wonderful,” says Alec.

          Magnus wants to laugh. Not in ridicule; he’s charmed. Something about Alec’s presence thrilled him when they first met, and it still electrifies him now, still sends his heart beating into overdrive every time Alec knocks him half a smile. He brings their joined hands to his mouth and presses kisses against the back of Alec’s hand.

          “Okay,” he says, lips still pressed to Alec’s skin, “okay. Did I ever tell you about the first time I fell in love?”

          Alec smiles, and he’s devastating. He’s all teeth and sunlight and even if Magnus didn’t know what he was, he would still say he’s half angel. Alec nods at him, and when he talks, he laughs.

          “Tell me.”

          “Okay,” Magnus says again. He shifts around in his chair, resettling comfortably and closer to the bed. He kisses Alec’s hand again. “I was…sixteen? No, fifteen. There was this beautiful girl at a rave I was at. I saw her across the room and just…stopped. I had to tell her, you know?”

          “Oh yeah,” says Alec. “I always tell girls how much I love them.”

          “Shut up,” says Magnus, laughing. Alec grins again and he thinks he could cry.

          Gentler than before, Alec says, “Go on.”

          Magnus clears his throat. “Right. So, this girl. She’s in this red dress and a full face of makeup—she has to be twenty-two, twenty-three.”

          “So right in your league.”

          “Exactly. So I go up to her and I tell her, ‘Hey. I’m Magnus and I’m in love with you.’”

          “Oh my god.” Alec’s voice lilts as he giggles. “You were subtle, huh?”

          “I was fifteen!” Magnus protests. “Anyway, she tells me, ‘No you’re not, honey. Go find someone who might actually fall for that.’”

          “She called you honey?”

          “I would have been mad if she wasn’t so beautiful,” Magnus says ruefully. “So anyway, I walk away, and I remember thinking to myself—shit. I’m never going to fall in love like that ever again. Just so suddenly, right there. As soon as I see them—just knowing that’s it for me.”

          Alec looks down for just a second, but Magnus, who hasn’t taken his eyes off of Alec’s face, catches it. Alec looks softer when he glances back up, his rough edges chiseled away, completely cracked open. He sounds almost shy when he says,

          “And did you?”

          Magnus almost leans forward to kiss him then, but he refrains. He knows how everything hurts for him now, all the time, how he’s never given a break or a rest from it. Age is cruel on him; it’s the one thing Magnus couldn’t protect him from. He tried so hard, for long, to help Alec however he could, however he needed. But this—it beat out even them.

          He releases Alec’s hand, his heart breaking at how Alec looks up at him when he stands. It alleviates a moment later, when Magnus crosses to the other side of the bed and lays down beside him, gingerly, trying not to shake him. When he puts his arm around him, Alec relaxes into him like it’s instinctual. Magnus’s heart beats faster. Magnus leans down to kiss him gently, and he presses their foreheads together after, squeezing his eyes shut for a second before looking down into Alec’s.

          “I did,” he says quietly. “Day after day after day I fall in love with you. From the very first.”

          Alec’s cheeks are dusted red, and Magnus brushes his nose against Alec’s. His eyes fall shut again.

          “I hate when you get all sweet,” Alec says, because he doesn’t.

          “It’s only for you,” Magnus says. “Remember what I said? After I met you?”

          “No,” Alec lies again. And then, “Tell me.”

          “You’ve unlocked something in me,” Magnus says, and it echoes through the years, “And I am never, ever going to love anyone the way I love you.”

          Alec sighs. Magnus opens his eyes and frowns at him.

          “Don’t lie to me,” Alec says. His hand is soft where it comes up to cradle Magnus’s cheek. “It’s okay, Magnus. I want you to love somebody else after I’m gone, and I know you will. It’s okay.”

          “But it will never be like this again,” Magnus says fiercely. “Never.”

          Alec rolls his eyes. “Magnus—”

          “You don’t get to fight me on this!” He finds Alec’s hand on the bed and squeezes hard. “I love you. That’s all there is.”

          He watches Alec swallow, then finds his gaze again. It’s steady.

          “Okay,” Alec says.

          “I love you,” Magnus says again.

          “You love me,” Alec agrees, “and that’s all there is.”

          Magnus stifles the thick wave of hurt that arches through him. Instead, he kisses Alec again, hard.

          It’s later, when Alec is almost too tired to talk anymore and Magnus is wondering how he could fall asleep with him and guide him into what comes after, that Alec livens suddenly.

          “What do you think it’s like?” he asks, and Magnus opens his eyes and rouses himself from the sleep he had been falling into.

          “What do I think what’s like?” he asks, but his heart is sinking.

          “Death,” Alec says. He says it so matter-of-factly, too, like it’s just a _word_ , like it doesn’t mean anything at all. Like it’s not hanging over their heads, day in and day out, waiting to destroy them.

          “I don’t know,” Magnus says guardedly. “I suppose it just feels like…nothing.”

          “You don’t believe in an afterlife?” Alec sounds surprised. “You’re immortal and I’m half angel. We fight _demons_. How can you not believe there’s something after?”

          “I just don’t,” says Magnus, as blankly as Alec had said _death_. “I don’t think there’s anything out there for us when we’re gone. Humans, maybe—I’ll allow it. But I think this is what we get. It’s why we should do something good with it.”

          Alec shakes his head. “That’s bleak.”

          “It’s how I feel,” Magnus says. “Why, what do you think happens?”

          “Mmm, I don’t know.” Alec smiles at him. “Maybe just my human part dies and I become full angel or something. Don’t you think I could get into heaven?”

          If there is one, Alec would be the first one there. Magnus rubs his thumb against Alec’s softly.

          “Definitely,” he says. “I of course won’t be meeting you there, but I do hope you’ll remember me fondly.”

          Alec laughs and pushes him gently in the shoulder. “You haven’t been _that_ bad.”

          “You weren’t here for the first five thousand hedonistic years of my life,” says Magnus. “You should have seen me in the seventeenth century. I was not a heavenly man.”

          “Pretty girls in red dresses will do that to you,” Alec says.

          Magnus rolls his eyes at his teasing. “Yes, yes. One day I’ll regale you with all the dirty details.”

          “I can’t wait to find out what skeletons are in your closet.”

          “Some of them literal,” he says. He shouldn’t snicker, but he does anyway. “So what then? You go into heaven and live there in peace? You don’t know the first thing about doing nothing.”

          “Well, that’s true. Maybe I’ll adapt.”

          “Maybe you’ll end up in outer space instead.” Magnus snorts. “I could go there with you. It’s more likely than me ending up in heaven.”

          “You know,” Alec says, “when I was a kid, my mom used to tell me that I would reincarnate in the stars after I was gone.”

          Magnus thinks that if anyone could, it would be Alec.

          He turns and props his chin on Alec’s shoulder. “That’s cute.”

          “On some level…It’s stupid. But on some level I still kind of believe her.”

          He sounds unsure; Magnus knows he’s waiting for him to tell him he’s wrong and that the idea is silly, but he thinks instead that it’s kind of beautiful.

          “Maybe you will,” he says. “Nobody knows what comes next, not even us. Warlocks, and Shadowhunters. You could be a star in the next life.”

          Alec laughs lightly. “Don’t entertain my stupid—”

          “It’s not stupid.” Magnus shrugs. “I like the romance of it.”

          “Oh yeah?” Magnus looks up and sees him grinning. “Would you look up at it every night and remember your lost lover?”

          “So what if I would?”

          Alec’s eyes close as he laughs, and it’s adorable, really, his scrunched up and happy face. Magnus’s heart sings. He laughs too.

          “God, you are such a _sap_!”

          “You love me,” Magnus says. Were he still fifteen, he might stick out his tongue.

          Alec softens. “I do,” he says. “Hey, listen—I may not be a star after, but I was thinking. I still want you to remember me when I’m…not here.”

          “I will,” Magnus says. “I told you—”

          “No, listen. I want to give you something.”

          Magnus raises his eyebrows. “Giving away your bling already? It’s not even the ceremony yet. Your sister is supposed to divide up what you have post-funeral. I’m sure we’ll all cry.”

          “Ha ha,” Alec says vacantly. “Would you shut up and hold out your hand?”

          Magnus sighs dramatically, but he does as he’s bid regardless. He even shuts his eyes. He feels Alec’s fingers on his wrist first, and then a heavy, solid weight wrapping around the same spot. A moment later Alec’s hand is gone, and Magnus opens his eyes.

          “You…your watch?” Magnus says. He pauses. “But you love—”

          “I love _you_ ,” Alec says. “Please, just take it. And wear it.”

          Magnus swallows. He blinks a few times, staring at the present. Then, because he has no words about it, he leans over and captures Alec’s lips with his own again, and they got lost for awhile, kissing and kissing and thinking.

          “I want this to last forever,” Magnus breathes.

          His eyes are closed and he can feel where Alec’s lips were just on his own, and he never wants this moment to end. He wants to find all the magic in the world and harness it to suspend time, to never leave this moment.

          Alec says, “Then it will.”

          But he’s wrong—time will go on and on and on. One day it will go on without him. For Magnus, too—but first he has to live without Alec, and the thought is more than he can take.

          He says, “I love you,” and it sounds choked.

          Alec says, “I love you,” and he sounds at peace.

          Magnus thinks he would hold Alec there if he could, in this moment where everything is breaking down but he sounds ready for it, he sounds like he’s done all the things he needs to do and he doesn’t mind, he’s okay. All Magnus ever wanted is for him to be okay.

          “You did so many good things with your life, Alec Lightwood.” He’s watching him closely as he says it, and Alec’s eyebrows go up. Magnus squeezes his hand. “So many, many good things. Everything you did made the world a better place to live in.”

          “I only did what my duty told me to,” Alec says. “The Institute. My parents. I’m a Shadowhunter; I’m supposed to save mundanes.”

          “It was more than that,” says Magnus. “You were perfect.”

          Alec’s blushing now, and he looks annoyed. It’s Magnus’s favorite face on the planet.

          “Shut up,” he says.

          Magnus laughs. He wants to hear Alec telling him to shut up for the rest of his long, long life.

          He closes his eyes. He wants to hear Alec. Forever.

          “Tell me something wonderful,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> [xoxox hmu](http://bluenoahh.tumblr.com/post/139669751815)


End file.
